


Flowers for the Victors

by ChocoChipBiscuit



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Stockings, Swearing, background Sirius/Remus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 02:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7959133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocoChipBiscuit/pseuds/ChocoChipBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Breakfast is lemon crepes, served in the breakfast nook with the sunny window, the light slanting warm and golden across Fleur’s long fingers as she slides the plate to Tonks. “For your strength,” she says, and her words are silk, gossamer-fine and elegant. Her accent casts a shimmer over her words, or maybe it’s that veela glamor she can’t control, the kind that makes Tonks’ tongue stick to her teeth like too much taffy.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>(or: two witches learning the patterns of their lives. It's shaping up to be  war, and they'll both survive.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers for the Victors

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit is due: I really, really love [Obscure Topography](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4430711) by montparnasse, and it was very inspirational, so I really recommend going to read that. It's an absolute gem and I adore it.

Breakfast is lemon crepes, served in the breakfast nook with the sunny window, the light slanting warm and golden across Fleur’s long fingers as she slides the plate to Tonks. “For your strength,” she says, and her words are silk, gossamer-fine and elegant. Her accent casts a shimmer over her words, or maybe it’s that veela glamor she can’t control, the kind that makes Tonks’ tongue stick to her teeth like too much taffy.

Really, it’s too much— too fancy for Tonks’ cozy little bachelorette pad, thank you, the well-worn flat that might not be much, just Tonks and her little pot of African violets all purple and thriving against the window, but Fleur has _presence_ , grace in her skin. Because Tonks can mold her own features like clay, lengthen her nose or pull her ears long, can even shape herself as fair and dainty as one of the Muggle models from those unmoving fashion magazines, but she can’t mimic Fleur’s porcelain fineness, that same ethereal sort of awe and wonder.

Like Fleur’s barely-there stockings left slung over the back of the kitchen chair. Even if Tonks tried sliding them on, she knows she’d hit a snag, a rough spot or a clumsy pull and then it would be just a few tattered shreds of former elegance, some gummy apologies, and then paying for replacement stockings from her own meager junior Auror’s salary.

It would be easy to envy Fleur, except— well, the girl can’t help it. Not really. Any more than Tonks can help being a Metamorphmagus, except at least Tonks can _control_ her gift, can hold it back and smuggle herself out, pretend to be anyone else when she’s got her features set and can go off for a round of skulduggery and drinks with everyone else. Not like Tonks is chained to just one face, like it’s the only thing anyone else will ever see.

A girl like Fleur— well, first thing anyone’s going to notice about her is her beauty. (And Tonks is only slightly ashamed to admit that yes, that’s what she saw too.) Easy to write her off as skimming by on her looks, her charm, her lovely accent. Easy to think things fall easily to her just because she’s lovely, and that she’s arrogant because of her beauty.

And she _is_ arrogant, yeah, but maybe that’s just a French thing. Or maybe it’s just a Fleur thing. Because she’s sharp as a tack and her mind glitters like crystal, takes a simple thought and spits it out in shards of rainbow. Takes someone smart and tough to go through the Triwizard Cup, after all. Can’t just bat your eyes at a dragon and flirt it to sleep, can’t just blow a kiss at a grindylow and charm water through your lungs, can’t match a maze with nothing but a tube of lipstick and a smile.

Beauty might be a weapon, but it makes a lousy shield.

“You are staring,” Fleur says quietly, so mild a rebuke it might be nonexistent, but Tonks flinches with a guilty conscience.

“Yeah, I was, weren’t I?” Tonks drops her gaze, stabs at her plate. Crepes so fine they melt at the touch of a fork, hardly needs the knife as she cuts a square. Tines scraping the plate as she picks it up and drops it into her mouth. “Sorry ‘bout that,” she says around her food.

“I am used to the staring,” Fleur says, and Tonk swallows down a half-dozen apologies, sticky and sour, but Fleur continues, “You are thinking of something.”

“Yeah, just— thinking it must be hard,” Tonks says vaguely, waving her hand with the fork still in it, then nearly dropping the cutlery. She catches it in her lap with a yelp. “Must be hard looking like that all the time.”

“Because of what I am, or what I am not?” Fleur says, chin raised in challenge. Eyes a beautiful silver-blue, like a clear lake under a cloudless sky. Then again, beauty is redundant with Fleur.

“You always stand out.”

“Says the woman with the pink hair.”

Tonks rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. You just— you’re gorgeous, and you know it, and I know it, there’s no sense beating around it.” A stumbling rush, too raw to be a compliment; only a statement of fact. “But you can’t— you can’t ever tone it down, yeah? Not like you can just change clothes, dye your hair, it’s in every piece of you.”

“I refuse to be less than what I am.” Danger, danger, warning in the flash of her eyes, the glint of light off those perfect cheeks and the silver whispers of her lashes.

“Nah, but it’s a different kind of brave. Can’t ever blend in, so get used to standing out.” Tonks shifts, scratches behind the back of her neck. Elbow high, though she lowers it when she realizes Fleur’s looking at her thicket of armpit hair. Ugh. No judgment, far as Tonks can tell, but just _looking_. Tonks resists the urge to suck the hair into her skin. “And real nice charms, too. Going through the tournament and all.”

Fleur snorts, and even _that_ is dainty, a silver-chime exhale of breath. Raises her cup of tea. Some sort of black tea with hardly any sugar, plus a hint of lavender that wafts across the table. Not the usual cuppa that Tonks picks up when it’s just her lonesome, but Fleur brought more than just stockings and lemon crepes when she moved into Tonks’ flat for their Order business.

“If I were anyone else, they would remark first on my intelligence, my wittiness. I am no Ms Granger of Hogwarts, to spend my days in the library, perishing my eyes with those terrible books, but I know my practical skills and I am excellent with theory.” And if it were anyone else, those words would be a boast— but Fleur says it firm and decisive, pinning her accomplishments to some unknown merit board. She won’t pretend false modesty, and perhaps that’s what makes her arrogant— a woman who knows her worth, and refuses to pretend otherwise. “But my grandmother is a veela, so they remark on that.” Lips curled, and a sniff of disdain for whomever ‘they’ might be. “I cannot help what I was born with, any more than you.”

Tonks, unsure of what to say, continues stuffing her mouth with crepe. The lemon melts like summer promises on the back of her tongue, a citrus hint of changing seasons.

. . .

Tonks wanders into the kitchen in her oversized pajamas and plops herself in a seat, bare toes wiggling against the tile. Fleur’s already moving, and the electric kettle’s going off, whistling—

No, _singing_. Some opera, some lady’s gorgeous voice wandering up into registers that Tonks can’t even imagine, would make her dizzy to try to hold. And Tonks doesn’t know the words, yeah, but hardly need words to get the longing, the mourning, the glory and swell of the music like a tide ripping through you, washing everything out in a spray of salt and want relentless as the sea—

Fleur thanks the kettle in French, then pours the hot water into a pot. Sets it down on the table.

“I didn’t know you knew any charms. For kettles, I mean,” Tonk amends, tripping over her words like stones. “Electric ones. Most wizards don’t bother making stuff that’s compatible with Muggle technology.”

“This separation of magic and Muggle is very British,” Fleur says, setting down two cups. Ceramic clicking against the wood, and Tonks curls her fingers around one. More for something to do with her hands than anything else as she listens to Fleur. “In France, especially in Paris— the tourists expect enchantment, yes? More is permissible. We live alongside our Muggle neighbors. We learn some of their so-useful technology, and we adapt.” She smiles, sweet as a secret. “And if a Muggle sees a little too much… a woman who looks a little too otherworldly? Or a child scribbling their homework with a quill? Or a sweet shop that sells candied violets and chocolate frogs? They are more willing to smile and accept.”

Fleur could be accepted in any circles she chose— but then again, moving between places doesn’t mean acceptance, any more than touring means citizenship.

“So. What is your secret then, witch with a Muggle kettle?” Fleur asks, teasing.

“No secret. My dad’s Muggle-born, and so I grew up with electric kettles and knowing rubber duckies and all the like.” Lips flapping, mind blank, just churning words because if she talks loud and fast, maybe she can drown out the sudden hammer-thump of her heart. “My mum thought it was all a grand adventure. Safer than us mucking around the kitchen. Dad and I are utter slobs anyway,” Tonks stammers, as if her clumsy words can build a bridge across this treacherous void.

“It is always a pleasure to learn new things about you,” Fleur says, with a smile like a sunrise and her eyes lit blue as a winter sky...

Tonks’ heart flips. Only manages to settle it by pouring herself some tea, plopping in enough sugar to make her teeth hurt.

. . .

“You wish to learn French?” Fleur says. Might be shock, might be amusement, the dip of her mouth hidden behind the little silver-rimmed cup Tonks bought at a jumble sale just last week. Already chipped on one side—didn’t even make it all the way home before Tonks fumbled it— and Fleur angles the cup to keep it from cutting her mouth.

Tonks shifts in her chair, resists the urge to sit on her hands. Always used to sit on her hands, some childhood memories set deep in her bones. _“Dora, no, please don’t touch anything. Dora, please stay still—”_ and how her mother could never stay as prim and proper as she’d like to pretend, would give harsh words and then soften them with a smile, a look, a gentle brush of her palm across Tonks’ cheek and then whispered conversations in the next room. The sorts of low voices that young Tonks found impossible to resist— still finds impossible to resist— so she’d pressed her ear against the edge of the door and heard her mother swearing no, no, she wasn’t going to become _her_ mother, wasn’t going to forget she was a Tonks, Tonks, Tonks, through and through, and any ancient and honorable houses could go stuff it.

(And it wasn’t until later, after Tonks had outgrown (some) of her adolescent giggles over giving herself all sorts of monstrous features, over her snuffling pig-snouts and long-eared waggles and noises so long and pointy you could cut cheese— wasn’t until later that Tonks started to realize that maybe, there are monsters deep in her bones too.)

“Well, your English is— really good,” she says awkwardly. Because Merlin’s arse, it really is. For all the way Fleur flutters and laughs about improving her English, Tonks _knows_ Fleur could survive off her English far better than Tonks could if she were plopped right in the middle of France. Tonks had never learned French— never part of the Hogwarts curriculum, and while there are some adult classes offered by the Ministry for those interested in international affairs or for Aurors interested in intelligence, it just never— well. Never felt important, or relevant, or higher priority than staying alive, keeping her nose in everyone’s books, or training with Moody and by Merlin’s beard Tonks still doesn’t know how to correctly pronounce half the dropped letters in French—or know which ones to drop in the first place— but at least Tonks can match Moody in a duel, when she’s in good form on a good day and not distracted by certain gorgeous silver-haired French part-veela witches who really look impossibly good and turn the cramped little kitchen table into something approaching _scenery_.

“And I mean, you’re— really good. I just figure, yeh, maybe I should learn a little, too? If you don’t mind? Unless you druther not and I get that too, I trip over my own tongue enough in _one_ language so you’d get to suffer through two…”

Fleur laughs, and it’s like bells and chimes and butterflies coming up Tonks’ throat, gonna fly out her nose and she could choke, it’s so beautiful— and Fleur smiles. Radiant as the moon. “It would be my pleasure.”

‘Lessons’ swiftly turn into ‘teaching Tonks how to cuss, loudly’ and really, Tonks finds this _much_ more eminently practical than trying to figure out why French goes from ‘fifty’ to ‘sixty’ to ‘sixty-ten’ and ‘four-twenties’ and then ‘four-twenty-ten.’ Plus it’s just fun, to finally see Fleur go from that effortless elegance to laughing, flinging her hair over her shoulder in a halo of light, all angelic and ethereal while she drops all sorts of vulgarities.

“No, no,” she insists, gripping Tonks’ hands (and Tonks thought she’d feel cool, like pale wine under an evening sky, but she’s warm and real and solid, the edges of her nails prickling Tonks’ knuckles) and laughing, smiling, her lashes casting shadows beneath her eyes. “‘Putain’ is very useful. Whatever you wish to express, you can do so with all your natural flair. If you need the washroom?” Fleur releases Tonks’ hand (and Tonks feels suddenly chill, empty as an old bottle, heart gathering cobwebs), clasping her hands to her face and knocking her knees together with an exaggerated wriggle and squeak of dismay, hopping in her seat. “Putain! Putain!”

Tonks can’t help it— she laughs, loud and long, snorting and she’s pink to match her hair but Fleur grins, proud and shining.

“Or if you need directions?” Fleur knits her brows quizzical, peers in all directions with a near-sighted squint, then flings her hand to her forehead, shoulders collapsing. “Putain!”

Tonks wheezes, pounding the table and barely able to keep her head up long enough to watch Fleur’s next act through a haze of laughing tears.

“Or if you wish to flirt?” Fleur smiles— broad and sweet, a sickle moon scything through Tonks’ heart, shatters and drops through to land on Tonks’ kidneys, or maybe one of the other squishy bits— and drops her lashes, rolls her shoulder back and pulls her hair to the side, exposing a strip of pale flesh on her neck. Raises her eyebrow, equal parts dare and invitation, rolls her vowels like pouring honey over ice cream. “Putain?”

And maybe those shattered bits actually landed on her bladder, since Tonks shifts in her seat, fighting the sudden urge to excuse herself. All clenched up and nervous, like she hasn’t been since the first time she snogged a girl—okay, that’s a lie, because Tonks is nervous _every_ time she snogs a girl for the first time— but the way Fleur sits there, perfect and shining, makes Tonks suddenly aware of the cowlicks in her own hair, the crumbs of toast on the front of her jumper and the hole in the toe of her left sock.

“I— I think that move works rather better for you than me,” she stumbles, laughs, and if she just keeps stumbling, that’s moving, right? Doesn’t matter if she bangs her shins over a coffee table, steps on a cat, any of that, moving is moving. Plus it’s only her own words, her own treacherous motor-mouth spewing. “I don’t reckon I can get away with swearing as part of a pick-up line. Or even, you know, as _the_ line. The only line.”

“It might work on me, if you were the one saying it,” Fleur says, and really, it’s unfair, just patently unfair how she shines like starlight and managed to drink from the cup, the lipstick on the rim a reminder that a sip’s so much like a kiss, and Tonks could drink her down, thirst and thirst and want and never be quenched.

But Tonks stops, flabbergasted. Like she’s never been flabbered before, feels like she swallowed an egg sideways and coughs, sputters. “Are you— are you having me on, now?”

“I am trying to flirt with you,” Fleur says reproachfully. “It has been quite difficult. You are so very forward when you wish, but you back off like— what is it, like the cat that touches the hot stove, when you are nervous.”

Tonks gulps, feels the egg settle somewhere over the broken pieces of her heart. Must have lifted off her kidneys, now feels like it’s bobbling somewhere around her lungs, makes her wheezy. All her internal bits in some sort of stew. “I always get nervous with pretty girls, nothing new about that,” she manages to squeak.

“I am accustomed to making people nervous,” Fleur says, voice soft— eyes shining, and Tonks bristles, thinks it must be something like pity before recognizing oh, oh, no, that’s what it feels like to be on the inside, looking out from that sort of great and terrible beauty that Fleur cannot control.

(Monsters and magic etched in all their bones, sigils binding them to histories they cannot change. Can only go forward, tell new stories and build their lives to match.)

“But I thought you and Bill…?” Tonks begins, voice trailing.

Fleur shakes her head. “He is a charming man. Very lovely. And yes, he was very good for helping me with my English, but he is also,” and here she shrugs, a lovely, enigmatic roll of her shoulder that could mean anything, “not my type, as you would say? And I find it difficult to date within my workplace. Too much room for gossip.”

“Oh,” Tonks says vaguely. Then, “Oh. _Oh_ ,” as the past few weeks click, shuffle, spin in dizzying array like a Muggle card-trick. Fleur’s lemon crepes and the way she’d let her hair land soft against Tonks’ cheek, the way she’d curl up on the couch like a cat and the way her smile would deepen as Tonks set a blanket over her, the way Fleur charmed the sugar to serenade something throaty and longing to the teapot, and yeah, there’s friendship, yeah, two witches learning the patterns of each other’s lives, giving space and laughing amidst the domestic drudgery of pulling long silver hairs out of the sink and Fleur _tsk_ ing as she flicks her wand at the teetering stack of dirty dishes that Tonks kept meaning to get to, honestly did, but Fleur firmly orders her out of the kitchen as the dishes start scrubbing themselves with gusto. So Tonks gets to work on picking up her socks from where they’ve been scattered under the couch, behind the dresser, one lopped sadly over the back of the chair as if longing that it, too, could be one of Fleur’s glorious stockings…

“It is charming,” Fleur says, as if she’s not the essence of charm herself, raising a hand to stroke Tonks’ cheek. A hint of scent at the pulse of her wrist, like lilac and water. “Some people, they— they chase, they pursue. They mistake their own attraction for interest.” Her mouth twists down, her eyes glittering. Diamond-sharp, cold. Cruel in the way of a winter storm that cannot help its nature. “They cannot see a woman in stockings, in makeup, in lovely outfits that make her feel good, in perfume that she enjoys— they cannot see that without thinking she wishes to be seen as an object, that she _wishes_ to be pursued.”

Fleur smiles, and it’s like sunshine chasing away the storm, leaves Tonks shivering in the sudden change of seasons. “But I like you quite a bit. You are more than charming. You are _endearing_. And I wish to court you.”

“Well, gosh,” is all Tonks can muster.

Fleur kisses the tip of her nose.

. . .

And really, living with an impossibly gorgeous flatmate who meaningfully leaves English translations of Baudelaire lying on the end table and who makes breakfast most mornings while Tonks picks up takeaway for dinner most evenings isn’t too different from living with an impossibly gorgeous girlfriend who drops her high-heeled shoes in the entryway to the flat, flings herself across the sagging sofa, and props up her feet with a lamentation that oh, oh, no, if only _someone_ would rub her poor aching feet…

Well, the most important difference is the snogging.

Fleur kisses sharp and sweet, her lips soft and honey-scented. A hint of tooth before melting like spun sugar, kisses Tonks’ nose and ears and everything in between. (And the first time— Tonks giggled, kissed back, felt her heart grow to bursting as Fleur kissed and kissed and was spending _forever_ on her nose before Tonks realized she had grown her nose to the size and shape of an overripe tomato, giving Fleur all sorts of blank space to kiss.) Fleur likes to sit on top and straddle Tonks’ hips, sinking into Tonks’ lap, hair hanging around them like a curtain as Fleur flicks her tongue to meet Tonks’, as Fleur wraps her fingers through Tonks’ hair and purrs warm and golden.

Tonks kisses back warm and messy, buries her nose in the scented sweep of Fleur’s hair, trails her teeth down the swell of breast, gnaws love-bites and bruises (and accidentally elbows Fleur’s belly) and really, feels like some sort of blasphemy, like she’s vandalizing this gorgeous thing that’s decided to plop herself into Tonks’ life, but it’s not vandalism if it’s wanted, not graffiti if Fleur traces her fingers to each budding mark, after, stands in front of the mirror and giggles and wraps an arm around Tonks’ narrow shoulders, makes her touch each bite and bruise, the blues and purples like water-lilies washed across her skin.

(Tonks could heal them with a few words, yes, a little bit of the healing knack that Aurors pick up to mend their bumps and bruises, but Fleur refuses. Carries them like love letters on her flesh, covers them with scarves and tailored blouses, secrets she keeps as she goes to work. Only shows them again when coming home, all glowing smiles.)

. . .

Fleur pours tea with an elegant grace, one hand cupping the spout as she pours a steaming stream into Tonks’ cup first, then Moody’s. Another rich black tea that smells something like honey and vanilla, almost as sweet as the scent of Fleur’s hair as Fleur lands a butterfly-kiss on Tonks’ cheek, buries her long fingers at the nape of Tonks’ neck and scratches her nails lightly along the scalp before walking to the kitchen.

Moody grunts, something halfway between approval and acknowledgment, or maybe like a bone caught in his throat. “You did good.” Tonks bristles, pink hair spiking like a hedgehog, but Moody rolls his eye at her. The real one, at least; the false one continues spinning erratic ellipses. “I tried giving her a talk about treating you nice, and she rose to a full fury and gave me a list of all your good qualities.” A snort, a dry smile that carves his face into gashes, old scars crinkling into a lattice of flesh and skin.

Tonks releases the sigh she didn’t know she was holding, her breath rattling against her ribs. Still, she can’t resist poking. “No ‘constant vigilance’?”

Moody stabs a stubby finger onto the table. “You give each other someone to fight for.”

. . .

Fleur blazes through Grimmauld Place, all burning silver and her hair like a banner, like a flag, like steel wings stretched behind her, some storm-winged creature that does not bother to hide her fierce approval as Sirius wrenches the curtains shut on the screaming Mrs Black.

“Sorry about my mother,” he says, in much the same way someone else might say ‘sorry about the dog shit’ or ‘sorry about that dead rat.’ He scowls, thumps his fist against the curtain as if to nail it shut.

Tonks never been quite sure what to make of him— he’s her cousin, yeah, distant cousin. Once removed, maybe? Can hardly tell anyway. She knows nothing of the blood-relations, what with him and her mother both cast-offs from the House of Black, dark scorches on that gnarled and circular family tree.

(Blood beneath those circles, enough to well up, flood the house in darkness. Bleed enough on that shadowed ground, and those could be called roots, she guesses. The only things sunk deep in this shuttered house. There’s no kinship calling her here.)

So here they are, the disowned son of the House of Black and the daughter of another disgraced daughter, both returned like weeds to this strange garden of horrors. With a werewolf and a part-human, both as bright a taint as ‘mudblood.’

(But oh, Fleur is nothing of earth, all fierce skies and bone-white teeth.)

They slip to one of the dry and dusty chambers, all four of them, gathered in a circle with two bottles, one of wine and one of firewhiskey, and a chipped mug (Tonks), a fluted wine glass (Fleur), a thumb-sized cup, smooth and shaped like an egg (Remus), and an extravagant crystal goblet with gold set like lace about the rim (Sirius). Gathered together, laughter a warm and crackling thing to chase away the dust-choked memories of this place.

Fleur lounges on the floor, elbow propped against a sheet-covered couch and her other arm wrapped around Tonks’ shoulders. She’s chosen a pale wine that smells like cool grass and spring rain, almost as pale as her hair. She teaches Tonks how to drink, how totaste, rolling it on the tip of her tongue and to the back of her mouth with a pink flush that has nothing to do with the booze and everything to do with Fleur’s cut-glass smile and throaty, “You must take your time, yes? Some pleasures are better… _savored_ ,” as her stocking-clad toes run up Tonks’ ankle, over the dip of Tonks’ thick knit socks and tickle against Tonks’ leg hair.

Tonks has no palate, can’t detect the ‘floral notes’ and ‘crispness’ and only knows she prefers the warm glow of butterbeer over this acid-tart wine, but then again neither can Sirius, who snorts loudly and sloshes a generous glug of whiskey into Tonks’ now-empty mug before pouring himself another couple fingers’ worth.

“Here now, got to fatten you up properly,” he laughs, all too-loud angles and a gauntness that still hasn’t softened, like a cage wrapped breath-tight, as he shoves another slab of chocolate at Remus.

“How do you even get this stuff?” Remus asks, voice threadbare with hoarse laughter. Too thin still, his face worn hollow. Another sort of gauntness, like too many full moons have crashed their way across his skin. (Tonks makes a note to tell Molly. Molly’ll knit him something lovely and warm. Tonks would do it, but she’s all thumbs, so that means Tonks will have to give Molly a loaf of something sweet and raisin-y, and _that_ means Tonks will have to beg Fleur to make it, and _that_ means she’ll have to give Fleur oodles of kisses, little fizzy pecks on the lips and shoulders, nibbling down to her belly like a billion bubbles breaking against Fleur’s skin, but that’s a bonus.)

Sirius snorts, hair falling dramatically over his eye in a rusty sort of way. Like he’s out of practice flirting, but probably spent scads of time doing it as a teenager, scowling and puffing himself up in front of the mirror. “I ask Dung.”

“And he does so out of the very goodness of his heart?” Fleur asks, brow arched.

“I give him the good silver to sell,” Sirius says, mouth gleaming raw and wicked as the sickle moon. “I know he’s nicking it anyway, might as well get something for it.” He shoves chocolate into Remus’ mouth and Remus is forced to swallow both the chocolate and his objections, chewing valiantly. “All this House of Black is rubbish to me anyway.”

Tonks watches Sirius cup Remus’ chin, watches the way they fill each other’s hollow gaps, all awkward uncertainties and teenage fumbling grown into an ivy-knit tangle. They lost so much in those years since the first war, and she wonders if they first fell in love as teenagers or as adults, or if there was ever really a boundary for them between friends and lovers, between youth and adulthood, suspended as they were in that terrible limbo of Azkaban and endless searching, survival and scraping by, scraping by, each and every month a matter of gritting your teeth and getting through somehow—

“It is rude to stare,” Fleur murmurs in her ears, and Tonks starts, realizing they’re _snogging_ now and she doesn’t care whether Sirius is her cousin or her cousin-once-removed or even her uncle and Sirius probably doesn’t give a damn about being watched anyway, but Remus probably would, so she averts her gaze and falls instead into the endless blue of Fleur’s eyes.

Maybe it makes no difference when you fall in love, as long as you fall deep and full into its wonder.

. . .

Honestly, the _real_ difference comes when Fleur buys her own flowers— some fancy orchids, a deep purple-pink that matches one of Fleur’s many shades of lipstick (a rainbow of color, pigments soft and bright, marking territories in swathes of kisses, a marching line of dot, dot, dot down Tonks’ wrists and twining over her fingers. Fleur will charm her makeup before leaving the house, but likes to paint Tonks with her mouth) and frankly, Tonks wouldn’t put it past Fleur to buy an orchid specifically to match her makeup.

(Then again, Fleur might have chosen the lipstick to match the orchid. All sorts of clever spinning things in her lovely head.)

Tonks likes her African violets, scrappy things that they are. Simple. Easy to care for. She keeps them tucked by the window. Not much of a view— other side of the apartment complex overlooking a scraggly row of trees that blossom white like summer snow— but she figures violets don’t need much to stay happy. Can take a bit of rough handling, and Tonks likes to touch her fingers against their velvet petals, soothe herself with the quiet life in them.

Fleur’s fancy orchids look like bright-winged moths, a spray of color atop a green stalk. Fleur even has a fancy name for them, _Phalaenopsis_ , a silver slur of syllables that rolls off Tonks’ ears. Tonks eyes them with severe mistrust, steers clear with her clumsy elbows and her awkward stumbles. They’re all exotic and delicate next to Tonks and her plain violets, but deceptively hardy— Fleur only waters them when bone-dry, chuckles at Tonks’ pained whine.

“They are not so soft, Tonks. They are lovely survivors.”

(And Tonks looks, really _looks_ at Fleur’s pale hands and smooth nails, her eyes that cut like glass and the way the veins shimmer pale beneath her flesh like blue thread, thinks about monsters and magic and how trying to be anything other than what you are is like biting the wind.)

It’s shaping up to be a war, after all, and they’ll both survive.

**Author's Note:**

> I am a silly American, and any failures of French or Britishisms are completely my own fault.
> 
> I also really, really do not recommend using 'putain' as a pick-up line.


End file.
